Senet

Introduction

Senet is an ancient Egyptian race game played between two rivals, the Hounds and the Jackals. The objective is to get all five of your pieces safely off of the game board while employing strategy to stall your opponent.

Bug Fixes & Upgrades

Owners of K.R. Engineering games are entitled to free upgrades to newer versions of the game. See the Frequently Asked Questions section for your game for instructions on how to update. If a new update is available, then following the updating instructions for your game will result in a new copy of the most recent version being sent to you by the update server. This process is not automatic, you must tell the game to update itself!

If you are having problems with your game, please instant message Karsten Rutledge in Second Life or send email to support@karstenrutledge.com for product support. If the problem you are having has not previously been encountered, a new game version will be released with a fix as soon as possible.

DISCLAIMER: The appearance and feature set of games are subject to revision between versions as the capabilities of Second Life change over time. Please see the detailed ChangeLog for new versions before upgrading by visiting the K.R. Engineering Support Wiki at http://wiki.karstenrutledge.com/. By continuing with the update you are agreeing to accept any and all changes that have been imposed on the updated version of the game.

Bug Bounties

If you think you've found a bug in a K.R. Engineering game, you could earn a bounty by reporting it! Follow these steps to report the bug and you could earn an L$500 gift card good towards anything at K.R. Engineering! All of the criteria below must be met before you are awarded a bounty on your bug.

The game with the bug must be a Gaming.SL compatible game (have the Gaming.SL logo present on the game itself).

If you find a bug in something other than a game, you can still report it. For example, if you find a bug in an accessory such as a scorekeeper or a prize server, you can report which game you were using it with when you encountered the bug, as long as the game you are using it with meets the above criteria.

Verify that the problem you are reporting is actually a bug. Not everything is a bug! It is at our discretion whether to award a bug bounty or not. There are some pretty common-sense things that will not earn you a bounty.

If you find a typo in the game documentation, website or the game itself, we would love to hear about it so we can correct it, but a typo is not a bug.

If the game behaves in a way that you think it should not, it is not necessarily a bug.

For example, a customer was once very cross with us because Spades progressed counter-clockwise around the table, instead of clockwise. This is not a bug, it is a design decision that you disagree with, and will not earn you a bounty.

Another example is that for a long time, Greedy Greedy did not allow four-of-a-kind plus two-of-a-kind (e.g. 222244) to count as three pairs when scoring. This was later added as an optional house rule, but it is not a bug, it was an intentional part of the scoring system.

Sometimes there are bugs that we are not able to fix because they are problems with Second Life as a whole, not with our products. One example of this is that older versions of our games sometimes display ??? in place of player names. This is a problem with Second Life giving our games bad information, not our games working incorrectly. We worked around this by reverting to old style names if we detect Second Life giving us bad information, but this is not a bug with our games.

Fundamentally, a bug is any feature that does not work as intended, rather than a feature that does not work as desired. You are always welcome to discuss how something works with us and offer suggestions for things like optional house rules, but there is no bounty for suggesting new functionality, only for reporting broken existing functionality. If you're not sure whether something is really a bug or not, feel free to report it anyway, and we'll follow up with you.

You must also tell us how you found the bug, and what it does. If we are not able to reproduce the same bug with the same results on a table of the same version, then we can't fix the bug, and you won't get credit for it. You should tell us things like:

What options were enabled on your table?

What steps did you take to get the bug to happen (e.g. "I clicked roll, and then clicked the second dice, and then I played Sweet Home Alabama on my banjo for my pet rhesus monkey, and then I clicked roll again...")

What happened, versus what you expected to happen.

If it turns out to be a new bug that we were previously unaware of, and we can reproduce it, then we will fix it and you will get a free L$500 gift card!

All of our games use common core components. For example, the script that connects the game to the Gaming.SL website is identical in all of our games. If a bug is found in this script, for example, then it is considered discovered for all games that share that identical script. You cannot report a bug as new by reporting the same bug for each game it effects, since it is the same bug and has the same effect for all of them.

How to Interpret The Dice

Senet does not use standard playing dice. That being the case, it is important that you understand how the dice are interpreted before reading the Game Play section.

The "dice" in Senet are the 4 long sticks next to the game board. Each die has a rounded side and a flat side. Think of them like cylinders that have been cut in half. The flat side has been colored black to make it easier to identify which side is up when rolling. The dice are scored in the following way:

1 flat side showing = 1

2 flat sides showing = 2

3 flat sides showing = 3

4 flat sides showing = 4

NO flat sides showing = 6

To roll the dice on your turn, simply click on any of the four dice.

Game Play

To play Senet, simply touch the game board to access the game menu and choose 'Play' to join the game. When there is no game in progress, you may touch either the tiled board or the decorative base around it to access the game menu. During a game, only touching the decorative base will bring up the game menu. This is to prevent accidental mis-clicks during the game from bringing up the game menu, which would be annoying.

Once two players have joined the game, you can choose "Start" from the same game menu to begin the game.

Game play in Senet occurs in two phases:

The Hunter vs The Hunted

In the beginning, the roles of the Jackals (white) and the Hounds (black) are not set. Players must take turns rolling the dice to determine who takes on the role of the Jackal. The first player to roll a 1 becomes the Jackals and must immediately move a Jackal 1 space. This phase typically only lasts a few rolls.

The Race

Once the Jackal has been chosen, the race begins in earnest. Players take turns advancing their tokens to reach the end of the board. Each tile on the board is numbered 1-30 and are known as Houses.

At the beginning of your turn, roll the dice to begin your play. You must then choose one of your tokens to advance. If your token lands on a House occupied by an enemy token, then the enemy token is Captured, and most go back to the beginning of the board. If the 1st House is occupied, they will be sent to the next available house.

It may be that some tokens cannot be advanced by the amount that you rolled, this could be for several reasons:

Two tokens cannot occupy the same house simultaneously. Moving one of your own pieces into a house already occupied by one of your own pieces is forbidden.

You cannot move a piece off of the end of the board. For example, if you are in the 29th House and you roll a 2, you cannot advance that token, as there is no 31st House.

You cannot capture an enemy piece that is protected by a neighboring piece. For example, two Hounds that are adjacent to each other are protecting each other, and neither one can be captured.

You cannot pass a blockade formed by 3 or more adjacent enemy pieces. For example, if there are three Jackals in a line with no gaps (a piece on the next row still counts as being in a line, as long as it is consecutive houses), then a Hound token is not allowed to jump over the blockade. Other Jackals may still jump the blockade with no restriction.

The 26th, 28th, 29th and 30th houses are safe houses. Any token occupying one of these houses cannot be captured.

If it turns out that none of your tokens can advance the amount you have rolled, you will instead have to move one of your tokens BACKWARDS the amount you rolled. All rules regarding capturing and moving forward apply to moving in reverse as well.

If the game determines that there are no possible moves for you to take on your turn with your roll, either forward or backward, then your turn will automatically end with no tokens advanced and it will become your opponent's turn.

The 27th House is cursed, any token landing there must start over at the beginning of the board.

In all cases, if there is a viable move for you to make, you MUST make it, even if you consider it to be to your disadvantage. This includes moving into the cursed house.

Winning

You have won when all of your pieces have been removed from the game board. You remove pieces from the board by moving them to the 30th House (the last tile on the board). It is important to note here, however, that you cannot remove pieces from the board until all of your pieces are in the last row (Houses 21 to 30).

If all of your pieces that are still on the board are in the last row, moving a piece onto the 30th House will automatically remove it from the game.

If, however, you move a piece onto the 30th House and all of your pieces that are still on the board are not in the last row, it will not be removed from the board. Instead, it will be removed automatically as soon as you have moved your remaining pieces into that row.

Some Strategy Tips

Always move one of your own pieces onto the 30th House at the earliest possibility. Even if you cannot move your pieces off the board yet, occupying the 30th House also means that your opponent will be unable to move their pieces off as well.

When possible, keep pairs and blockades together. For example, if you have a pair together, and you roll a 2, the rear piece can leapfrog the front piece and thus stay as a pair. If you roll something other than a 2, consider moving a piece not in the pair if possible. Likewise in blockades, if you roll a 3 then the last piece can leapfrog to become the first piece, still maintaining the blockade.

Try to get your pieces onto the safe zones at the end of the board when at all possible.

Capturing an opponent's piece is not always a good idea. If your opponent is occupying the 30th House, thus preventing you from moving into it and getting your pieces off of the board, it may be a good idea to avoid capturing their pieces so that they can move that piece out of your way.

Variations

The reality is that no-one knows exactly what the real rules of Senet were in ancient Egypt. Many historians have made educated guesses as to the rules used, but they often disagree on particular points. As such, it is possible to find Senet boards with different rule sets. With this in mind, Senet has several options which can be enabled or disabled by the board owner to switch between differing rule variations.

Multiple Rolls: (default is ON)

When enabled, players can take any number of rolls on their turn and continue advancing so long as they roll a 1, 4 or 6 each time. If they roll a 2 or 3, then their turn is over (after advancing their token).

When disabled, players only get 1 roll per turn, regardless of what they roll.

Occupy 30th House: (default is ON)

When enabled, tokens can only be removed from the board by landing directly on the 30th House.

When disabled, tokens can be removed from the 28th, 29th or 30th house, provided they roll exactly 1 past the 30th House. This means that if a token is on the 30th House, they must roll a 1 and only a 1 to leave the board. If they're on the 29th house, they must roll exactly a 2 to leave the board. If they're on the 28th house, they must roll exactly a 3 to leave the board.

Harsh Captures: (default is OFF)

When enabled, captured enemy tokens are sent back to the beginning of the race.

When disabled, captured enemy tokens swap places with the token that captured them.

Gaming.SL Integration

Gaming.SL is a new broadened gaming experience for players in Second Life. Gaming.SL provides a web-based connection to participating games for the purpose of storing persistent leaderboards that are searchable by region, parcel, winner, and many other options. The leaderboards can be viewed either through objects in Second Life, such as the included Scorekeepers and Gamekeepers, or by visiting the Gaming.SL website at http://Gaming.SL.

Gaming.SL also provides ongoing recurring Jackpots where players can win cash prizes just for playing, no purchase necessary! Visit the website at http://Gaming.SL to see the current jackpot standings, and who you need to defeat to win a prize. Prizes are based on ranking on a leaderboard that is erased during each jackpot period. Players must play during each period to be eligible to win during that period.

Gaming.SL includes support for Achievements in participating games, where-in you can unlock trophies by performing miraculous or mundane feats of gameplay. Achievements are awarded automatically and announced in Second Life when they are unlocked.

Many more features are coming to Gaming.SL, visit the website to stay up to date on the latest.

Players can access information about the game and their own achievements and scores on Gaming.SL by either visiting the website or by clicking the Gaming.SL logo on the table.

Administration

To access the game's administrative menu, simple touch the game board to access the game menu, then press the "Admin Menu" button. If a game is currently in progress, you will need to touch the decorative base of the board to access the game menu. The menu is disabled on the tiled surface during a game to prevent accidental mis-clicks from being annoying.

Some elements of the administration menu are accessible only by the owner of the game, while others can be accessed by anyone who is considered an administrative user, either explicitly added or implicitly through the Group Admin feature.

Owner-Only Options

Rem Admin: Select this option to remove a game administrator. You will be prompted to say their name.

Add Admin: Select this option to add a new administrative user to the game, allowing them to force resets and change game options on the table (not the admin menu, only options on the board). You will be prompted for their name. They must be within 50m of the game for this to work.

Admins: Select this option to see a list of current administrative users on this table.

Branding: Access the table Branding menu.

Phantom: Turn the table phantom (non-physical) so that you can not collide with it. (default mode)

Physical: Turn the table physical so that avatars will collide with it.

Update: Select this option to make the game check for available updates and automatically upgrade if available.

G.Admin On: Off by default, this enables the Group Admin feature. When on, all members of the table's group are considered administrative users, whether they've been explicitly added as an administrative user or not.

G.Admin Off: Disables the Group Admin feature.

Administrative User Options

Timeout: Select this button to change the number of seconds the table waits for idle players to begin their turn. If they don't roll before the timeout occurs, the game will skip them for this round.

Quiet: Makes the table be quieter in chat, disabling many chats that are redundant to the information displayed 'graphically' on the table.

Chatty: Makes the table normally chatty again.

G.Play On: Off by default, this enables the Group Play feature. When enabled, only members of the same group may play on the table. The group of a game is the group you had active when you first rezzed it. You can change the table's group by editing it and clicking "Set.." next to Group on the General tab of the editor. Group members must have their group tag active in order to be recognized as group members by the table.

Prizes

As of September 1st, 2014, it is a violation of the Second Life Terms of Service for this game to have betting or buy-in options. The Internal Prize Server menu now consists only of the option to enable/disable the External API and links to the Linden Lab policy and FAQ. For more information, please read the Skill Gaming page. The menu itself was left in to spread awareness of the policy change. This game no longer requires debit permissions from its owner, nor does it have the option to pay money to the winner of the game under any circumstances.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Senet

Do you offer upgrades on my version of Senet?

Yes, upgrades are available for ALL versions.

How do I get my board upgraded?

Touch the game board to bring up the game menu. If a game is in progress, you will have to touch the decorative base rather than the tiled board. When the menu comes up, press "Admin Menu" and then "Update."

Your game will disappear (delete itself) and you will receive a new game. Delivery of new game may take up to 5 minutes.

The admin menu has multiple pages, if you do not see the Update button, press the <<< button until you do.

General

Will you bring your games over to InWorldz/other OpenSim-based grids?

Short answer: Not for the foreseeable future, no.

Longer multi-part answer:

Most money made in Second Life comes from volume sales, it's the reason you can buy a shirt for L$200, which is the equivalent of $0.80 USD. They're called micro-transactions because despite the big numbers we throw around in Second Life (ooh, "thousands"), they're really, really tiny amounts. My games range between L$295 and L$1995, that's about $1.18 to $8.00 USD, or what you'd expect to pay for a good phone/tablet app on iPhone or Android these days. This works because like Android/iPhone app developers, Second Life developers hope to sell not merely hundreds, but thousands of copies of whatever they make, otherwise it simply is not worthwhile. This means to make developing worthwhile, you need to have a large market to sell to, because if you're lucky, 1 in 100 people will buy your product. If there's 1000 people, you might sell 10. If there's 10,000 people, you might sell 100, if there's 100,000 people, maybe you'll break the 1000 barrier. It's simple economics. Not everyone is interested in everything, so not everyone is going to buy your product. The biggest problem with InWorldz (and other even smaller grids) is that it is VERY, VERY SMALL. As of this writing, there are 2000x fewer people connected to it than Second Life. That means you can roughly expect to sell 2000x fewer of your product on InWorldz than Second Life. In order for that to be worthwhile, you'd have to sell it for 2000x the cost, but nobody would buy it for 2000x the cost. That would make Greedy Greedy $16,000 USD on InWorldz. If it were as simple as picking up my games, walking over to InWorldz and rezzing them, I might consider it, but there is a considerable time and resource investment into bringing a product like my games over to another grid, and all indications say "You will never make that money back." It's simply more worthwhile for me to develop new products for Second Life than to port old ones to a nearly empty grid.

Some people might argue that this is a chicken and egg problem, or more succinctly, "if you build it, they will come." InWorldz is small because of lack of content, but it has a lack of content because it is small, it's a vicious cycle! That may be true, but unfortunately doesn't change economics. I've logged into InWorldz periodically over the last few years (my name is Karsten Rutledge there also) and what I see is not a world suffering from lack of content, it's a world suffering from a poor business plan. InWorldz looks like Second Life from 4 years ago, and performs even worse. The ONLY reason anybody at all is on InWorldz is because they offered super cheap regions compared to Second Life, and then on top of that, offered 45,000 prims per region instead of 15,000. Sounds too good to be true! That's because it is.

Second Life regions aren't limited to 15,000 prims out of spite, they're limited that way in an effort to offer both resources and performance at a balance. This doesn't always work because people who use the regions don't understand region performance is a finite resource, but you know what works even less? Tripling the load on the regions. This doesn't just triple the load on the regions, it also triples the load on all of the viewers trying to look at that region. Instead of having to download 15,000 prims from the internet, your computer now has to download 45,000 prims from the internet, and your computer has to render those 45,000 prims on your screen. Sounds good on paper, in practice, people who run Second Life slowly run InWorldz EVEN SLOWER, if they can run it at all.

This 'super cheap gimmicky regions' philosophy has led to one readily foreseeable and obvious result: It's a wasteland. While I'm writing this, there are enough people connected to have 1 person for every 6 sims. Vast expanses of land with nobody in them.

OpenSim is a remarkable effort, but it never was up to the performance of Second Life and probably never will be. I've been standing in a nearly empty InWorldz sim just waiting for a single airplane to fully rez, and half an hour later, it still hasn't, it's just a distorted cluster of half-rezzed sculpts. This happens in every region I go to. InWorldz simply can't deliver what it promises.

(Update) I'm told InWorldz has Mesh now, at least in beta. Which just further illustrates that InWorldz is just treading water to keep up with Second Life, it's not offering anything new or innovative. Second Life has had mesh for years, and InWorldz is just now getting around to catching up.

Scripting support lags behind. For something like skins, this hardly matters, but if Second Life adds a new LSL function and InWorldz doesn't, your scripted content probably doesn't work on InWorldz anymore.

If you think 'copybotting' is a problem in Second Life, wait until you see OpenSims. The 'open' being the key part. Once you upload your content to an OpenSim grid, it's now "in the wild" so to speak. The one last bastion of security in Second Life is that scripts are still not accessible to copybots. If you're a skin designer, your skin is no more at risk on an OpenSim than it is in Second Life, to see a skin or other texture your computer has to download it (although new server-side avatar baking is making this much harder, thankfully, something else I believe InWorldz/OpenSim doesn't do, meaning your skins are now less safe in OpenSim than Second Life), so you are essentially passing out copies to anyone who even sees an avatar wearing your skin, much less buying it. You only see the EFFECTS of scripts though, not the scripts themselves. Therefore porting scripted content to an OpenSim grid carries a huge additional risk, because now you are making your scripts available to a much wider group of people, namely whoever has administrative access to that OpenSim grid.

All in all, I believe competition for Second Life is healthy and good, but InWorldz and other OpenSim grids aren't competition, they're poorly made ripoffs trying to lure people in with cheap gimmicks, and that's probably all they will ever be. If one of them manages to achieve any significant market size or, shockingly, innovates on Virtual Worlds somehow, I'll probably be keenly interested. Until then, it's not worth the time or effort.

I (or someone else) does not appear on scorekeepers or gamekeepers, or on the Gaming.SL website!

This is because you (or they) specifically requested NOT to appear on scoreboards. You did this by touching the Gaming.SL logo on a game table and selecting the 'Opt Out' button. See the Gaming.SL page for more details about this. You can fix this by touching the Gaming.SL logo on a game table, and pressing the 'Opt Out' button AGAIN.

On newer game tables, this button is marked as "Opt Out|In" and spawns a warning dialog box asking ARE YOU SURE you want to do this. On older tables, it will simply tell you in local chat what it is you have done after you click on it.

NOTE: Opting out also prevents you from earning achievements and participating in grid-wide jackpots.

Are you going to convert your games into mesh?

Yes, they are mesh now as of July 2018. If you have an older non-mesh game table, you can convert it to the new Mesh system by visiting our store in Second Life and using the MIGRATE sign on the wall.

I saw a game table I want to buy, but it looks different from the ones in the store. Where is the other one?

Our tables come with 2 basic themes or "skins" they can use. A wooden classic octagon table and a post-modern futuristic shiny table. Newer tables also can have new themes added on to them after purchase by visiting the theme showcase in our store. New themes are released regularly and cover a wide range of styles and genres. After buying the table, you can change which theme is in use at any time.

For newer games, that is games that show the Gaming.SL logo on the table top, this can be done by accessing the Color/Appearance menu on the table and choosing the Switch option.

For older games, this can be done by pressing the New Style or Old Style buttons in the game's Admin Menu.

My game has been updating for a long time, it says to contact you if it persists, what do I do?

This happens to very old games when the Second Life network is losing packets under a heavy load. Send the game to Karsten Rutledge in a folder with your name on the folder.

Where can I find/do you have a table with multiple games on one table?

No. I would like to do something like this, but it isn't practical in SL for many reasons, including prim limits, scripting issues, security issues and permission issues.

Troubleshooting

How do I get rid of the annoying info box that pops up when I mouse over your table?

This is actually something your viewer is doing. The table cannot produce this info box and also cannot get rid of it. You can disable it in your viewer's preferences (usually labeled as "Hover Tips"), but it will disable it for all objects, not just the table. In most viewers, you can toggle this feature on or off by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+T on your keyboard.

I think my table is broken, it wants me to pay to play, but the Pay... window is completely blank!

This a bug in some very old versions of a modular script that really old tables used that will cause it to blank the pay dialog if the table is picked up and rezzed again. You should really update your table.

Why do I only see candles on the table?

On very, very old versions of the game tables you could touch the base of the table (the flat round part at the bottom) to 'hide' the game. You probably touched it by accident. Just touch it again to bring the game back. Or better yet, update it, because your table was around to see the Pharaohs.

I lost the instructions card that came with my game, can I get a replacement?

The instructions notecard is the same card you get by pressing the HELP button on the game. Simply click it for a new card.

Some of the buttons on my game don't work, what do I do?

Often this is because someone's invisible attachment is covering the button, such as shields and other things. To check, open the View menu and turn on 'Highlight Transparent.'

My game doesn't work at all, NONE of the buttons work, what do I do?

First verify that you are not in a no-scripts zone.

Next, you should verify that the table is not obstructed. Often this issue arises because there is an invisible prim over the table, frequently from nearby foliage. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard and this will activate "Highlight Transparent" mode on your viewer. Any prims that have alpha (transparent) will be turned red. Make sure there are no red prims covering the table that you are accidentally clicking on instead of the actual table. Press Ctrl+Alt+T again to turn off the highlighting.

If you're not in a no-scripts zone, then right-click on your game and choose 'Open', if there is nothing in the contents then you must have removed all the scripts from it, apparently without realizing it. There is no way to fix this, the game will have to be replaced. Send it to Karsten Rutledge in a folder with your name on it.

If there are scripts inside the game when you open it, the problem may be that the scripts got deactivated, possibly by the estate tools. You may have a jerk for a sim administrator. The game will have to be replaced if this is the case. Send it to Karsten Rutledge in a folder with your name on it.

My game paid the winner twice (or more times), and now I lost money, what do I do?

As of September 1st, 2014, gambling on K.R. Engineering tables is against the Second Life Terms of Service. You should update your table to a compliant version immediately.

More than likely, this means you have more than one Prize Server rezzed in the same region (sim). One server works for every game in the same sim, unless you tell the prize server to only listen to a single table. See the Prize Server page for more info.

My game is running very slowly, what is wrong with it?

The speed of objects in Second Life is based on the speed of the simulator they are rezzed in. If the simulator is running very slowly, which happens when it is overloaded, then everything in the sim will also run slowly. Void/Homestead/Openspace sims are always going to be much slower than full simulators even if they are relatively empty.

My game got deeded to a group, and now I can't do anything with it, what do I do?

Presumably, since the table got deeded to the group that means you are either a group officer or a group owner. As such, you can simply set the table for sale for 0L and buy it back from the group. To do this:

Right-click on the table and choose 'Edit...'

If you have not used the building interface before, you may need to click the 'More' button to expand the window.

Go to the 'General' tab on the left of the window and check "For Sale."

Be sure to set the price next to this to 0.

Below the For Sale box it should say 'Original', 'Copy' and 'Contents', make sure that Original is the button that is marked.

Now right-click on the table again and choose 'Buy.' The table will still remain rezzed, but you should now be the owner again.

Your game has texture fighting problems on the table, can you fix this?

Unfortunately, no. If you are seeing texture fighting (usually the black backboard and the wooden game table surface are most commonly noticeable), then you are probably at a really high altitude, such as greater than 1000 meters up. This happens because of rounding errors (such as 1.06 getting rounded to 1.0, loss of precision) in the math that the Second Life viewer does when calculating where to display each part of the game. The math gets less and less accurate the higher up you go. Before a couple years ago, we were limited to building up to 768m high for that reason, they only recently raised the cap to 4096m, but the problem is still there. For some things it doesn't matter, like nobody cares if their couch cushions aren't quite where they should be, but in the case of the games, the black backboard and the wooden table surface are both parallel and fairly close together, so the rounding error shows up on it in a big way. At that altitude, Second Life thinks that prims that were separated by a small amount are no longer separated at all, and draws them in the exact same position even though they are not. The only solution is to use the table at a lower altitude, generally less than 1000 meters, although your mileage may vary depending on your graphics settings. You can see this for yourself if you move the table down to lower altitudes. At ground level you will see the table most correctly, but the flickering will stop well before then. The only way I could "fix" this issue is by separating all the game elements much farther away from the table surface, but this would cause the game to look strange at normal altitudes instead of looking strange at high altitudes, a trade-off that's not really practical or desirable.

Whenever I brand my table, some or all of the dice disappear, what am I doing wrong?

This happens whenever you use a texture that has an alpha layer (transparency) on the backboard. The dice are partially transparent, so you end up with the well-known issue of "texture fighting" on your board, where the viewer isn't sure whether to display the dice on top or the backboard on top. Even if your texture does not have any visible areas that are transparent, it can still have an alpha layer. If you are the original creator of the texture, try uploading it again without an alpha layer. The easiest way to do this is to save it as a .jpg (Jpeg) or a .bmp (Bitmap) file before upload. .png (Portable Network Graphics) will also work, as long as you know how to save it specifically as a 24-bit .png file (minus the 8-bit alpha layer that a 32-bit .png file has).

Since I upgraded my table, I can't choose specific seats to sit at anymore, why?

You still can, actually. Newer tables have a new theme system that allows them to have cushions on the seats, but the cushions are not part of the seats, so if you try to sit on the cushions it is no different than trying to sit on the table itself. In these cases, Second Life will simply seat you at the next available seat in order. To choose a specific seat, try right-clicking on the chair back instead of the chair seat and choosing Play. Some themes may drastically alter the shape of the chairs, but you can always still choose a specific seat by right-clicking the correct prim.

Modifying

Will you create a custom game for me/my business?

At this time we do not offer custom games. The tables have the ability to change their centerboard texture if you wish to brand them for your establishment or replace with a picture, etc.

Additionally, newer game tables have the ability to add entire new themes to them. We do not do custom themes, but we do take suggestions for future themes you would like to see available as options.

Perhaps most importantly, adding any amount of customization to a game, be it aesthetic or functional changes, automatically terminates the update path for that game. The updater will not be able to send you newer versions of your specifically customized game in the future, thus cutting you off from bug fixes and new features.

This game is a lot of prims, will you tweak it for me to be less prims?

This falls under custom games also, and likewise, no. I do my best to create games with as few prims as possible. If I could reasonably reduce the prim count further I would have already done it.

Can I buy a copyable version of your games?

No, sorry, I do not sell copyable games.

Can I buy a modifiable version of your games?

Likewise, no, I do not sell modifiable games. The reason is because any game that is modifiable opens it up to potential abuse by the owner of the table, including manipulating the outcome of the game by inserting extra scripts into the game contents. This is bad both for my business and for anyone who owns one or more of my games. If even the possibility of a game table being rigged exists, then it damages the credibility of every one of my games in Second Life. If a dispute arises, I can say "No, the game tables can not be rigged by unscrupulous hosts." because it is true. I need that deniability and so does every honest game host on the grid. It is important that people trust the outcome of a game to be fair and based only on legitimate game actions.

Can I put your games into a temp-rezzing system?

No, for two reasons. A temp-rezzer works by deleting and re-rezzing the object every 1 to 2 minutes. On top of being incredibly hard on the simulator (causes a LOT of lag), this means that everyone playing the game would be evicted and the game 'reset' every 1 to 2 minutes. Makes for a very unplayable game. The other reason is that the games are no-copy/transfer, and they would have to be copy/no-transfer for this to be doable.

Can your games be put into a rezzing system of any kind?

No. Again, the games would have to be copy/no-transfer for this to work.

Money

Can I gamble on this game?

No, you cannot. Gambling is currently a violation of the Second Life terms of service. Please see the Skill Gaming page for more information.

If you have an older game, it may have the option to gamble on it, but you absolutely should not. You should, in fact, update your table immediately, as you can get in trouble for having a game with payout options, even if you don't use them. See the Skill Gaming page for more information.

I only want to play the game with my friends, we don't want to have to pay it, can I do that?

Yes, in fact, this is the only way you can play it. It is a violation of the Second Life terms of service to play a game that has betting options on it, even if you don't use those options. See the Skill Gaming page for more information.

Why is my game asking to take money from me? Is it trying to steal my money? I don't understand!

If your game is doing this, you should update it immediately! Please see the Skill Gaming page for more information.

If you have an old table, debit permissions are needed for the Pay-to-Play feature to work correctly. This is because Pay-to-Play is basically a vendor, a vendor that sells a service (playing the game) rather than a product. All games in Second Life that can be bet on work this way, because it is the only option. Objects can not hold money, so money paid to a game goes to its owner instead. In order for the game to pay back to the winner, it must have permission to take the money out of the owner's account. You can safely deny this if you are feeling particularly paranoid about it. It will not break the game, it will only prevent the Pay-to-Play feature from working, which is not an issue if you intend the game to be free-to-play anyway. If you accept the debit permissions, it will never pay out more money than was taken in during a game, so you cannot lose money by enabling it.

Purchases & Replacements

My object got returned, and now it is gone, it never came back! Can I get a replacement?

Your object is probably not actually lost, just hidden! This is a feature of Second Life. When more than one object gets returned from a parcel at the same time, then Second Life does not send them back to your inventory as individual objects. Instead, it will bundle them all together into a single package. This package/bundle will appear in your Lost and Found folder as one inventory item, even if there are 5, 10 or 100 objects actually inside of it. The bundle/package will only show the name of the FIRST item in the bundle while it is in your inventory. To see what else is inside this bundle you will have to rez it. We recommend finding a sandbox to do this in to be sure that there are enough prims available for whatever happens to be inside the bundle. Some additional things to look out for:

Because bundles only show the name of the FIRST item in the bundle and nothing else, this means that the inventory search bar at the top of your inventory window will not help you, as it cannot search inside of bundles.

Bundles should have a different icon next to them than single objects do. This is often represented as a stack of smaller boxes, rather than a single large box.

If you can't find your missing objects, you should try clearing your inventory cache in your viewer preferences. This is usually under the "Network & Files" or "Network & Cache" tabs in most viewers. Look for the "Clear Inventory Cache" button, not the standard "Clear Cache" button as that only clears texture caches. You will have to close and restart Second Life after clearing your inventory cache.

Returned objects NEVER go back to their creator, they only go back to their OWNER. This is a false rumor. Second Life simply does not work that way, nor has it ever.

As a general rule, you should never return anything that you want to keep. Return is for taking out the trash, it's like a bulldozer clearing a lot for new construction. It is not a tool of finesse, and is known to eat objects. Always remember to properly TAKE things that you care about, and only RETURN if you have other copies of the object or don't care if you lose it.

If following the above advice does not allow you to find your missing object, you can contact us to ask for a replacement. In most cases we will be able to provide a replacement as long as your table was purchased from us originally. If you bought your object used from a third-party reseller, we may have no record of it.

I found someone reselling your products, is that allowed?

I do not have a reseller program at this time. However, many of my products are transferable and this allows anyone to resell that game to someone else, much as you would at a garage sale or flea market. Unfortunately, often times these tables are counterfeit and I cannot guarantee the same level of support on a used table as I can on a new table. You automatically assume some risk when purchasing used. For example, if there is a failed delivery, it will be up to you to resolve it with the used reseller, I won't be able to help you since it wasn't purchased from me. Likewise, old tables that are purchased used may not be able to be updated to newer versions. There's also the possibility it is a straight up scam, and you will receive nothing for your money. I cannot guarantee the legitimacy of "used" products that are sold by a third party, as I have no affiliation with them. Buyer beware.

My object is missing and I don't know what happened to it. Can I get a replacement?

First, you should verify that the item is actually missing! This seems obvious, but sometimes people look in the wrong places. Here are some common mistakes people make when looking for lost items:

If you are using the inventory search bar at the top of your inventory window, make sure you are searching by the product name and not the brand name. For example, if you're trying to find your Greedy table, make sure you search for Greedy, do not search for any variation of K.R. Engineering, because the brand name is not in the name. The objects are named "Greedy Greedy Table v2.75" and NOT "K.R. Engineering Greedy Greedy Table v2.75" so they will not show up when searching for brand.

Do not rely on the "Recent" tab in your inventory window, as this will often not show items that you expect to be 'recent', such as newly purchased items. To verify your object is actually missing, always go to correct folder in your main "Inventory" tab.

Verify that you are not looking in an old folder or box. Each time you update your Greedy game, for example, you will have a new folder with a new game in it, and if you haven't deleted your old folders (from before the update) then you may find yourself having multiple folders all called "K.R. Engineering Greedy Greedy (boxed)."

When an object actually goes "missing" in Second Life, the next thing you should do is clear your inventory cache. There are two versions of your inventory; the one that the server knows about and the one that your computer knows about. Sometimes these can be end up being different due to communication errors between the server and your computer, and clearing your inventory cache forces your computer to update what it thinks is in your inventory to be the same as what the server thinks is in your inventory. Very often objects will reappear after doing this, especially objects that were lost due to 'failed to rez' errors.

If you still can't find your missing object, there's a good chance that it was returned to you at some point by the owner of the land you last rezzed it on or even by Second Life itself, such as when a parcel goes over prim limits. In this case, your object should be in your Lost and Found folder and just needs to be moved back to its normal folder, BUT it may be hidden! This is a feature of Second Life, and you can read about it in our FAQ on returned objects.

If following the above advice does not allow you to find your missing object, you can contact us to ask for a replacement. In most cases we will be able to provide a replacement as long as your table was purchased from us originally. If you bought your object used from a third-party reseller, we may have no record of it.

Can I get a discount if I buy a lot of something?

Rather than a bulk discount, our vendors now offer a rewards bonus for each purchase in the form of store credit. This reward bonus can be used towards the purchase of other items in the store. To see how much store credit you currently have just touch the CREDIT sign in the store, or view the "My Credit" page on the Gaming.SL Live website.

I bought something and everything is in the folder except for the actual product!

This can actually never happen, but there are many common reasons it might APPEAR to be that way! Here some of the most common reasons:

If this is a newer version of a game you previously owned and updated, you may be looking in an old folder or box from your previous table, make sure that you don't have multiple folders/boxes and verify that you are looking in the most recent one.

If you are using the search bar at the top of your inventory window, you will need to search by the product's name, not our company name. For example if you purchased Greedy Greedy, try searching for Greedy, do not search for K.R. Engineering because the object name is "Greedy Greedy Table vx.xx", there's no "K.R. Engineering" in the name of the game table like there is in the name of other things in the folder.

Do not use the "Recent" tab on your inventory window. The ways of the Recent tab are mysterious and shadowy, it does not always show you everything that's been added to your inventory recently. Look for the folder in your normal Inventory tab.

You may have gotten the item and then subsequently misplaced it unknowingly. This is a "feature" of Second Life. It occurs whenever you attempt to rez a folder full of objects all at once in some Second Life Viewers, by dragging the folder out of your inventory instead of individual items. When this happens, Second Life interprets this as "put this folder of stuff INSIDE whatever I dropped it on." In this case, you have everything except the game/product because it is transfer-only, and everything else in the folder is copyable. Your game/product is inside whatever prim you dropped it on, probably your floor or rug, for example.

This can also occur if you press the CTRL button on your keyboard when dragging and dropping just the table by itself.

There may be other ways to do this that are not listed here, depending on the viewer you are using, but the end result is the same.

Also keep in mind, it is inside the PRIM you dropped it on, not the OBJECT you dropped it on, even if you dropped it on a prim that is in a linked object. You will probably have to enable "Edit Linked Parts" in your build window to look in individual prims, rather than whole objects.

It is possible you put the game/product inside an object that you don't own, for example if it is a group owned object or if you have modify rights on someone else's objects (such as your significant other). If this is the case, you don't own it anymore as ownership is transferred to the person who owns the object it is inside of. You may have to ask them to retrieve it for you and return it to you.

If you are unable to locate the item, or are unsure how to look for it, please let us know and we will be happy to help you look for it. If we also can't find it then we can usually replace the lost table.

Changelog

Version 1.0 [February 2012]:

Initial release.

Version 1.01 [April 2012]:

Fixed a bug where the second player to join was always the Jackals, even when they shouldn't be.

Added option to change to a jade, blue, red or black playing board.

Version 1.02 [April 2012]:

Minor change to how the game menu is presented when clicking on the game board.

Version 1.03 [April 2012]:

Added the ability to have the dice position on the right side of the board, left side of the board or in front of the board.

Changed a lot of "error" messages (such as "Not your turn") to use the new llRegionSayTo function to reduce chat spam.

Version 1.04 [November 2013]:

Cleaned up additional instances of table not defaulting back to Legacy Names when Display Names return ???. (Internal prize server)

Opt Out button in Gaming.SL menu is now Opt Out|In for clarity. Also spawns an ARE YOU SURE confirmation dialog with more information.

Version 1.1 [July 2014]:

Updated to Gaming.SL API v1.1.

Game will now attempt to restore settings from before the update.

ALL PRIZE FUNCTIONS HAVE BEEN REMOVED to comply with the new Skill Gaming policy from Linden Lab. As a result, table no longer requests debit permissions on rez.